and you will light the cinders
by altairity
Summary: Other worlds might have given them a childhood growing up together among teacups and fencing lessons; this one gave them an adolescence spent regaining those years in flame and conspiracy, and it is almost better. León. Alfonso.


_and you will light the cinders_

* * *

In the hushed cool of the abandoned house outside Santa Bard, Alfonso first sees León's flames.

The night is like any other, as they make conjectures about storming the castle but go to bed having added little to their plans. In the days he has spent with León after Orvien, they have fallen into a dynamic that feels familiar in its ease. His cousin, brusque to others, speaks more naturally when they are alone, and sometimes even shoots him a smile when Alfonso compliments his cooking or thanks him for sneaking to Santa Bard to buy food.

Alfonso has never needed anything more than reality, but those moments when they spar or sit by the fire idly talking have the feeling of nostalgia, as if they've known each other all their lives. And it is a tempting fantasy, that they are two souls made of the same matter, and can see through each other like they do themselves.

Other times he's reminded how different they are. The bedroom has only two mats, and they sleep with a few feet of space between them. He is accustomed to hearing León fall asleep first, despite all that he knows troubles him. He is always glad to hear the other boy's breath deepen, has even begun to depend on its steady rhythm.

Tonight he is roused from a doze by more labored sounds. Blinking, Alfonso recognizes the other boy shaking on his side. "León?"

He grabs the lantern, still dimly flickering in the corner of the room, and coaxes its embers to a flame. What its light reveals makes him gasp.

Strange symbols flash on León's skin as he clenches one arm around the other, buckling into a curled position. They look like little crosses, like some ancient and lost but familiar language. They're red, but blackening as if branding him. He calls León's name, grabs his shoulder—and then yelps at the red-hot heat. It's as if he is burning in his own skin.

"A-Alfonso?" León shudders, his left cheek consumed in black.

"Are you all right? What is this?"

León draws closer into himself. "Nothing," he gasps. He covers his face, but the marks don't go away. The black peeps through his outstretched fingers. "I was just dreaming."

Spoken to convince himself as well as Alfonso. Alfonso steps back, still on edge. "I'll bring you some water."

He takes a long time filling the glass, so that by the time he's back, the marks have faded.

"Thanks," León says hoarsely, accepting the glass.

"Are you all right now?"

"Yeah." He doesn't say more. "Sorry for disturbing you."

"Don't worry about it. Are you going back to sleep?"

"Probably not."

"I see. I'll keep you company."

"You don't have to. You should rest."

"I'm not tired," he lies.

Together they move to the sitting room and light the fire. The hours pass in comfortable silence as they cradle mugs of tea. León won't meet his eyes as he thanks him.

"Of course," Alfonso says, but cannot keep his smile for long. The shadows the fire casts on León are softer than the marks, but they still give him the appearance of being swallowed by black. It's foolish to indulge in camaraderie as if they're bosom brothers; he knows nothing of—and has no place in—a world that burns like that.

* * *

Days inch by. The world, barely in color, seems worn at the edges in a way he'd been blind to before. It's strange that under this bluest of skies, in this most peaceful of villages, surrounded by such vibrant color, there lingers such _emptiness_.

Cardboard figures thresh the wheat from the nearby fields, and crack their aching backs at the end of each day. Their actions seem as incomprehensible as his stillness. He follows the girl as she leads him into the fields to her work, and all the while he never fully escapes from thoughts of the castle raid in Santa Bard.

It's perhaps folly to call them thoughts, for he never participates in any reflection, just lets half-eclipsed memories wash over him. His armor lifting from him like a well-worn coat he never knew was there. Flames coursing from him, as natural as exhaled breaths, enclosing him in a desperate attempt to protect himself—from…?

No, more to protect, they were there to lash out at anything that approached. He recalls a stumble through blackness, while the flames that burned his mother seventeen years ago rose from ashes to do their work anew. He knows he reveled in that rage. Acknowledging it brings no flicker of the same emotion now.

Sometimes, among all that, he remembers a prince.

Alfonso's light is one without flame, one that scorches in dry heat. León remembers him at the moment when Garo chose him, his jaw set like a blade at an enemy's throat, his eyes at once glinting transparently with the desire to protect, and fathomlessly beyond that with pain most of Valiante couldn't begin to guess. Yet that diamond boy is the same as the one who did not hesitate to weep and stake his life for his kingdom, who has known as much pain as him and yet for whom _revenge_ is as alien a word as _evil_.

León couldn't believe it sometimes, even when Alfonso was right before his eyes. Righteousness, for him, has always been cloaked in violence. Depth in a person's eyes, for him, has always meant the clinging reminder of pain. That the hand that trembles in suffering may, the next moment, censure the unjust—the understanding of this is something he may never grasp.

As time passes, the veil lifts over the lifeless forms of the world, and a little color seeps back into them. He comes to know the scent plants give off as they grow, and the tingle on his skin of air that portends rain. The stew he eats every night sheds its cardboard taste so that he can distinguish under it the bite of fresh radishes, the savory warmth of potatoes. Lara smiles, and coaxes sparks from his ashes. He thinks less of the golden prince, but wonders if he is living more in his world.

* * *

The dust smothers him as lightly as a reminder. Alfonso sees only the sunset-blushed sky now, which has cleared of clouds. His fingers twitch reflexively at his sides, scrabbling at the ground, muscles brought to fatigue. Minutes ago his hands were clamped around his sword.

What a sight—the armor of Garo leaping away, like gossamer being plucked from him, and alighting on León's waiting limbs. The lightning of it swept the entire sky. It doused the coliseum's ruins with new life. His own breathing tears through his ears as the scene plays itself over: him left staring at the Golden Knight resurrected among the ruins, before it rushed forth and with one great brush knocked the sword from his hand and sent him hard into the ground.

"Are you all right, Alfonso?" León, now unarmored, comes to his side.

"Y-Yeah."

He allows León to help him up, and winces when he sees how much dust is caked onto his white pants and cape. León on the other hand is spotless. He'd emerged from the golden armor as if from a cocoon, and he breathes quickly but evenly.

Alfonso shakes himself from the stupor before León can stare at him any longer. Catching his breath, he slides Zaruba off his ring finger and takes León's hand. "This is yours again."

Before Alfonso can step back, León places his other hand over his.

Overhead and around them, the barbs of the ruined coliseum puncture the remains of the sky. Wind rises and threads through their hair. In the spreading golden light, León's eyes take a deeper color. Alfonso envies him something of the freedom of his past months, even as he recognizes that they have been far from easy, and that the envy is ridiculous because he knows León has never envied him his princehood, or wished for anything other than his mother's legacy.

He is three years older than the red-haired boy, but sometimes feels like a child still playing the role of the golden prince. Whether bowing at his father's side or fleeing under the cover of a cloak, he has never felt his identity waver. But León has played many roles, has known a fall that Alfonso can't afford. And that has aligned his whole being with the flicker of a burning flame.

Isn't there something more he can do? What stops the thing in him yearning to break out? He is a prince, and for all his vows to protect Valiante he could not undergo a transformation nearly as stark as that León has. He could not even have protected his own friend.

"I'm sorry." The sky winks its expansive indifference. The ruins raise up their carved and crumbling pillars in a grand shrug. Alfonso claps his hand to his face. His glove is besmirched with dust, and irritates his eyes to tears. "I'm sorry I couldn't save them for you. I should have—"

He steps backward, and his leg buckles on the ground it touches. If León is startled at the movement, he doesn't show it, stepping forward to grasp Alfonso by the shoulder. "No one, not even you, Alfonso, has the responsibility to save everyone."

"This isn't talking about everyone." He stares at the ground so that León won't see the slow tears rolling off his nose to splash in the dust—León, who has never once called him _my prince_ as do the others. "Not even the kingdom of Valiante, but people who are important, at the times when it counts."

"What are you talking about? I've seen you do amazing things when it counts," León frowns. "Like the first time I met you, with the Chimaera."

That's right, the ruins hold heavy memory of Rafael as well, and the days they danced among the pillars. Thinking of him doubles the gravity. Alfonso presses his hands on León's shoulders, and hangs on through the worst of the shaking that passes through him. Still the thought remains: _But I didn't do anything for you. Not then_. Even though he had held León's hand at the bottom of the cliff and promised. It is fine to preach of justice and protection, but at that moment he wants only to fall and be burnt for that failure.

 _(And rise anew, to join you in flame.)_

"Get ahold of yourself, Alfonso." León tightens his grip. Steadily, as the sun sets, Alfonso does. The coolness and slight moisture of dusk quiet him, as the ruins grow dim and more peaceful. Soon he is able to raise his face.

There are not just those two options, the untarnished golden prince-protector and the fallen, scarred atoner. Looking at León, at the unsure attempt of a smile on his lips, he's sure of it. His ears grow warm. He summons a smile. "Sorry."

"If you say that one more time, I'm going to hit you full on next time," León grumbles, finally letting go of Alfonso's shoulders.

He tries a laugh, which crackles a little against the dryness of his throat. His horse is still waiting where he'd tied it outside the coliseum, and he rides to the palace with León pressed against his back as the first stars herald night.

* * *

For a while nothing makes sense when it's all over, neither the blue of the sky nor the white of the castle walls. For a while he dreams of the darker world of Makai, where it is hard to believe both Mendoza and his mother still reside, enacting the former's Promethean punishment.

To dispel the hold of those memories, there is Ximena every morning, smiling as she brings in the laundry. There is Ema, until she leaves. And there is the prince. Working with Alfonso to rebuild Santa Bard makes him think of the time months ago during the first reconstruction, the one he warranted and didn't stay around to see. The town is in high spirits despite this being the second great ransacking of the capital in the year. But thinking of that no longer gives him guilt.

He helps Alfonso most days, the two of them separate from the other reconstruction groups. Today is particularly brilliant. The beating sun drains the strength from their bodies; the eddying wind restores it. Overhead, a flock of soaring birds occasionally spill down a libation of melodious cries. He and Alfonso work side by side laying down stones in one of the minor roads leading into the forest. The sweat he works up is an absolution. Through small efforts like these, he can see the city moving from piece to whole.

They work without speaking, though he sometimes steals glances at his cousin. Alfonso wouldn't be a good farmer, he thinks with a smirk. The sun would darken his alabaster skin, and his hair would rub sweat into his eyes with each repeated movement. The prince is a hard worker, but he lacks the stamina León has developed through his months' stay with Lara's family.

When he stands, the joints in his shoulders crying out in relief, he spies Alfonso leaning against a tree by the sidewalk. "What, tired already?"

"Just taking a break." The little embarrassed smile at the corner of his lips contradicts him. "You should too, León. You've been working so hard."

Gladly, he lays down his trowel and comes to join him in the shade. Alfonso hands him a canteen, and he drinks deep. Hard labor attunes him to the needs of his body; he can feel every gulp of water sink into him, and it feels fantastic. Alfonso stares ruefully up at the noontime sun. The heat haze saturates them both.

León glances towards the far end of the road they are repaving, and almost sighs when he sees how close are the forest and its shade. "Alfonso… it's too damned hot. What do you say we take a nap and come back to this?"

Alfonso starts. "We certainly cannot! Don't you think that would be unprofessional of us?"

"Why? Both of us are more than used to sneaking off. And weren't you the one who wanted a break?"

"León, this is different! If one of the workers comes by and sees us away from our post, they'll think we're missing and cause an uproar."

"No one's going to see us. The entire street's blocked off, so no one's taking this road into or out of the city. And it's the hottest day of the year so far."

"Still…"

"Look at that grove right there. Doesn't the shade look nice?" Alfonso bites the corner of his lip, following his glance. "One hour, Alfonso. Just until the noon sun passes. There's no point getting heatstroke."

Alfonso finally grants him a smile, his shoulders falling in acquiescence.

A little past the road, past a straggle of bushes, is a shady grove untouched by the wear of the city. It looks like it could have been the abode of forest nymphs in ancient ages, with its clusters of trees and jutting rocks. Sunlight spills into its center, but the edges are all shade. León leans back against a wide tree. Alfonso sits next to him. They are dozing almost before they close their eyes.

In his light sleep León can just perceive the rumble of reconstruction work from afar. His skin, dulled by the battering of sun while at work, slowly regains its sensitivity. It prickles at the little pickups of wind that thread through the grove. The sensation of heat dies down until it ceases to be noticeable.

He lies swathed in the pleasant lull for some time. Regaining consciousness comes in a natural slide of awareness to the birdcries, to the caresses of the wind. He shifts against the bark, nudging Alfonso from his side in the process.

León opens his eyes, and realizes the prince is slumped against him. When he turns his head, his chin brushes a shock of blond hair. Alfonso sighs into half-consciousness, and nestles a little more closely into the crook of León's neck before starting.

"I apologize! I didn't realize that was you—" The tops of his cheeks color as he draws back. "I seem to have thought I was back in my own bed."

"It's fine," León assures him, idly wondering why he seems to miss the spot now that Alfonso isn't pressed to it. Amid all the sweltering heat, he had started to feel pleasantly warm. "You didn't have to move."

Alfonso blinks, his eyes betraying such irresistible hesitation that León, without thinking much, leans forward and presses a kiss to his lips. It's only a split second after that he registers the suddenness of the choice. And that is easily reconciled. There is no real need for a _why_ anymore; it's laughably easy, remembering Ema, remembering Lara, and their too-brief lessons of affection; he's learned a lightness and a love from them that begs to be bestowed on others.

The kiss is entirely chaste and lasts only a breath. It leaves Alfonso a distinct pink. It leaves him clutching at León's sleeve.

"Not your first kiss, I hope, Alfonso?" he smirks, glancing at the prince's hand.

"No—I—"

At that moment the prince looks every bit as virginal and pure as bespeak his white cape and golden trim. Then Alfonso grabs him by the collar and kisses like he could kill. Like he is wielding a sword, like he is standing tall, with the same white grace and open intention. The prince is more enthusiastic than adept, but the flashes of tongue León catches send him reeling.

Heat ripples through him, coursing from lip to limb. He welcomes it, and knows that these are the flames of which his mother spoke. León is swallowed by them, swept away, barely realizing he is raking fingers through Alfonso's hair.

They are finally living in the same world, one lit by fire that warms without burning.


End file.
